Lost & Found
by matanee
Summary: Post-Reichenbach. John has an unanticipated encounter with an old acquaintance, but the outcome of their conversation is not even the slightest of what he expected.


It all felt like an oldstyle cliché. He was walking the streets without any destination. Aimlessly. It perfectly reflected his current lifestyle. He used to be desperate, but now... He didn't care. He was walking.

Grey and black everywhere - it's all that he saw. Puddles left from the afternoon rain, empty streets, fog and sound of footsteps. He heard a proper crowd marching after him, but he was alone, completely alone. A part of him would've been a little bit terrified, a little bit lost, maybe abandoned. Now, he didn't feel anything. Suddenly, he had a slight suspicion about where he might've been, but he wasn't sure. He pushed the thought away. Why would he care when he could be so blissfully lost at last?

He turned as soon as he reached the nearest corner and noticed someone's sharping shapes in the fog, right in the middle of the street. He held an umbrella, although it wasn't raining anymore. A kind of familiar pain started getting stronger in his brain when he slowly approached the figure, and when he could've made out his face, he stopped. He didn't want to have this conversation right now, but the other man seemed slightly amused and serious at the same time. It almost made him sick to his stomach, but he tried to keep himself together. The man was alone, and it meant nothing else but that the case was important.

And that was when he decided he didn't care.

He slowly took a few careful steps further, but when the man with the umbrella hasn't moved, he passed him by and only the sudden voice made him stock-still again.

"He keeps staring at you, doesn't he?"

A tired sigh almost split the fog only a few metres away from him, but he didn't turn around. He didn't want to face him, to see the face of the man that partly ruined his life all those years ago. Who made him want to get lost and never be found again.

And frankly, he had a face that yelled for a great slap.

"You feel it, too. You are not an idiot."

"I don't know what you're talking about," he managed to answer, although his voice was painfully weak.

"I'm talking about_ Sherlock_, Dr Watson."

The name he hadn't heard for months now made him breathless. It felt like a bullet in his shoulder, and his knees suddenly felt unsteady. The urge to run away became stronger by every second, and the only reason he didn't obey was his rebellious body.

"If you want to make sure you haven't gone mad, I suppose you might want to take a look at the message he left for you in the alley on your right."

It was an hoax. It had to be. But since when Mycroft Holmes was this cruel? He loved his brother just as much as John did - but could it be possible that the guilt he felt for the consultant detective's death brought the worst out of him?

He wanted to hear Mycroft's answer, but when John turned around, he was already gone. The sound of the non-existent crowd returned, and for a moment he wanted to stay stubborn and pretend like this whole one minute conversation had never happened. Old feelings revived in his soul - like hope, or the kind of curiosity he felt only with Sherlock. It wasn't easy to fight off, so when he woke up from his thoughts, his legs were already taking him right into the alley that Mycroft was talking about.

His senses worked with all his might, and slowly the whole wide street had disappeared from his sight - only the gloom remained. The crowd seemed to reach him now, finally catching him, and with his heart racing madly in his chest he slowly made out letters on the wall. It used to be white but the dirt and rain changed it to gray with the time passing; the original sentence, however, was still perfectly readable. It was the homeless network's message to the world, and it was present in every single alley of London.

_We believe in Sherlock Holmes._

But under that, with small, indistinct letters that John would recognize anytime and anywhere, there was an answer. The crowd has turned around and started to run away like pigeons when you throw a rock amongst them, leaving John with a relieved smile on his face.

_I'll be back soon. Let's have dinner._


End file.
